PDAC Arising in Young and Old Patients Display Similar Molecular Features

Pancreatic ducal adenocarcinoma is classically diagnosed in the 7th decade. Yet, approximately 10% of patients are diagnosed under 55 years. While the genomic and transcriptomic landscapes of late onset tumors (LOT) have been described, little is known about early onset tumors (EOT). Aging is known to impact DNA methylation and proteome integrity through carbonylation-related oxidative damages. We therefore aimed to assess the global molecular features of EOT. We compared 176 EOT ( 70 years) from three distinct surgical cohorts at the clinical/genomic/epigenomic/transcriptomic level. Furthermore, we assessed oxidative stress responses and oxidative proteome damages using 2D gel electrophoresis followed by mass spectrometry protein identification. There was no consistent clinical difference between EOT and LOT across the three cohorts. The mutational landscape of key driver genes and the global methylation profile were similar in the two groups. LOT did display age-related features such as enriched DNA repair gene signatures and upregulation of oxidative stress defences together with increased proteome carbonylation. Yet, these age-related differences were more preeminent in non-tumor tissues while tumor proteome and proteome damages were fairly comparable. In conclusion, this multi-omics comparison showed that EOT harbour a very comparable molecular profile to that of LOT. Funding Statement: This research was funded by Nelia and Amadeo Barletta Foundation. Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest. Ethics Approval Statement: The hospital ethics committee approved this study (IRB 00003835-2010/01NCIB).